I’ve read a lot of fiction, some of it considered to be literature, some of it popular with the masses, and some of it both of those. I’ve liked a lot of it, but there’s a lot I just never found real interesting, or real good. My fails (whether it’s my failing or the author’s, I make no judgement, as I’ve undoubtedly given short shrift to some accomplished works due to inattention, bad mood, or disinterest in the topic/style) are listed below. List yours!
Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. The protagonist just seemed like a dick.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Sort of an interesting read, but I can’t say I found it worthy of its acclaim.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Kids can be jerks. Got it.
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham. Overly complex for my tastes. And I thought I liked complex stuff . . .
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. The fantasy world too comic, the allegory too heavy-handed for my tastes.
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Let it go already, Old Man! That way, the author can go off and fatally pester some bulls or something.
Not a fan of Catcher either.
Confederacy of Dunces usually tops my list in this sort of exercise. I get it - the protagonist is loathsome. And why am I supposed to want to read about him?
I read “The Handmaid’s Tale” not long after it came out, and I didn’t see what all the acclaim was, either. It was a badly written story about a dystopian society where the “victims” were unlikable regardless of what they had been through.
(dons flameproof suit)
I also tried to read “A Wrinkle in Time” when I was a kid, and couldn’t get into it. I tried to read it a few years ago; nope, same thing.
I’d love to see a Lord of the Flies remake with today’s American kids. They would all be freaking out that their smartphones don’t have an internet connection and be totally clueless with even rudimentary survival skills.
Also I find the Catcher in the Rye to be a chore to read and I don’t relate the main character at all. Even when I was his age.
Lord of the Rings. I purchased a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring midway through a sea voyage way back in the Summer of '04. It was during a brief stop over in England. Two weeks later I was home, still with fifty pages to go, and it had been a slog to get there even in the confined conditions. I made several abortive attempts to finish it over the following four years, but only succeeded in reading another 25 pages. I just couldn’t bring myself to care, about the characters, about the plot, even about the literary craftsmanship (or the lack of it). It was a total snooze.
Anna Karenina, which I had to read in college. Why this piece of dreck is considered a work of art is beyond me. I hated each and every character in it and was delighted when the airheaded twat threw herself under the train at the end.
I too have never particularly cared for the works of F Scott Fitzgerald, and I also find Tolkien to be incredibly boring. The only thing more tedious than reading Lord of the Rings was having to sit through the first movie.
I’ve never understood the attraction of The Little Prince either. I’ve had two girlfriends who wanted to give me a copy (one in English and one in German), but they (thankfully, I guess) never got around to it.
Dune. All talk, and the action all occurs “off-screen” so to speak. I read it in my early twenties, and whenever I told anyone I didn’t care for it, they said Oh, you were too young; read it again. So I read it again in my late thirties. Still didn’t like it.
Interview with the Vampire. Maybe if I could have read it without picturing Tom Cruise I could have finished it.
Pretty much all of Hemingway, except for The Sun Also Rises and some of the short stories, which are pretty cool. Hem was a master of self-promotion. He spent more time on that than his writing.
Dashiell Hammett was doing the same thing at the same time, and doing it better. Unfortunately, he made a ton of money off The Thin Man, and quit writing in favor of drinking.
After reading a number of his works just because I thought I should, I’m convinced his sole aim was to ensure generations of American literature students would be perpetually bored.
I read The Three Musketeers a few years ago – in part because I’d enjoyed various movie adaptations, and in part because I decided that I wanted to expand my horizons, and read some classic literature.
It was…OK. I struggled with some of the names and references, but mostly what I remember being surprised about (and not in a good way) was how much of the book revolved around the heroes worrying about how much (or, more precisely, how little) money they had, and coming up with schemes to make money.